Running twice a day

I'm not quite sure how to describe what happened today. I haven't been able to talk to my kids every night since I left for a variety of reasons. Lately, I've been too tired to stay awake until midnight or later to talk to them, and Steve has mentioned that Naomi has been acting up. The kids miss me. I feel terrible.
So today I brought the web cam to work and snuck a meeting room so I could talk to them in the morning. I was talking to the kids, they could hear me but I couldn't hear them for some reason, when I saw Steve's girlfriend walk out from the kitchen and back again in a nightie.
We had agreed a while back that when we were ready to introduce the kids to someone that we would tell the other. Steve told me, actually I had to ask, the day he introduced her to the kids, less than a month ago. I met her a few days later at the park for a few minutes, then I left on this long trip, Steve has moved house, and now she's sleeping over with the kids in the house. I also found out from the kids that they have met her children, Steve apologized for not telling me about meeting the kids (this was last week that I found out about it)and said it wouldn't happen again, and then a week later, this....he isn't taking this seriously.
Of course, if I had done this to him, it would have been the worst thing ever, but because it's him getting on with his life it's ok. So I have to smile and pretend that every thing is ok in front of the kids so I don't let on that their father can't be bothered to respect their mom.
I have no idea what I should do. When do you choose standing up for yourself over your kids, and why would anyone force you to do it?

Things that are good

I'm feeling like the worst.mom.ever, so I went for a walk.

Return to Stockholm!

The rest of the week got away from me. I'm back in Sweden and about to start work again tomorrow. The rest of my trip in Finland was full of family and more meet ups and food and trying to piece together the mysteries of the family history. I have returned fat and overwhelmed and happy and full of so much love.
This morning I had my first run in over a week along the seawall and it felt so good even though I was still hacking stuff up. I hope I can get up early enough to go again tomorrow.
I miss my kids, this trip feels too long. I know I don't have to worry but they miss me more this time too and it's making me so sad.

More to love

Yesterday was a busy and an emotional day. We started with some sightseeing late in the afternoon. We went to the Russian Cathedral, the national library, the Helsinki Cathedral, the railway station, a bit of shopping, then the rock church.

After we met up with Rita and one of her daughters and we went to a old restaurant with traditional food. We were joined by many other relatives - twelve or thirteen in total- for a meal and good wine. I had asparagus and smoked salmon and new potatoes.

There was lively talk around the table as I met my second cousins and their children, some in school, some in business, all animated and interesting and funny. We compared ourselves, looking for similarities. One of the women looks a lot like a picture we have of my grandmother when she was 15 or 16. After the meal we all walked to my grandmother youngest half-sister's apartment in Helsinki. She is 83, very lively and warm. She reminded me almost instantly of my grandmother, especially the eyes.

She played the piano for us - she plays by ear. Old songs, war songs, popular songs, at one point we were all singing along to Elvis. I was overwhelmed emotionally, to be sitting there with so many wonderful, talented women, all related to me, all coming together to see me. I've never felt so special and so undeserving of such an honour, it was truly remarkable and humbling.

I cried several times during the evening, and laughed, and sang, and shared stories about my grandmother. On the way home I tried to explain to Richard in a text what the evening had been to me and I couldn't come close in words. It was just so much to take in, unreal and overwhelming and marvelous. I slept soundly and woke up this morning to sunshine on the water and birds singing - the first sunny day I've had in Finland.
Today, my grandmother's other half-sister, Meri, came for a visit with her husband, Esko. Joining us for lunch were two more of my mother's cousins, Vaikho and Torsti. We had a good lunch and tried to unravel some of the mysteries of my grandmother's family. There are so many stories that it's hard to tell what is true. Maybe some day we will be closer to figuring out all the real history.

It's Monday, this must be Finland

I spent the week working in the office and then we found out that there was going to be a delay in the project. I was planning on taking some time to visit family in Finland near the end of my stay, but because of the hold up, I contacted my relatives and they were more than happy to receive me a little early, so I booked a flight and off I went!

Like Sweden, it is unusually cold here for this time of year. I packed for a normal Swedish May and was surprised to discover that I should have packed more sweaters and fewer sandals....whoops! Jess loaned me a sweater and I bought a pair of pants, so I'm not so bad off now.
So yes, I arrived in Finland on a cold, grey day and found Mariella, my mom's cousin, waiting for me in a gorgeous red coat, a nice contrast with the weather.

We hugged and then ran to her car and drove to the cemetery to plant some roses on my great-grandfather's grave. Mariella's mom is also buried there. It was mother's day, I missed talking to my kids which was upsetting, but I did get a video.
After the cemetery, we went back to Mariella's home in Espoo and had some tea and talked and she brought out pictures and before you know it it was dinner time so we had a nice meal and then I had a shower and a sauna in hopes of clearing out the cold I've been fighting off. I felt much better by the time I returned upstairs, and we watched the very end of Der Rosencavalier being broadcast on tv. Mariella's a big opera fan which I was very excited to hear. The next time I visit we will try to go to the opera together :-)

So I am perfectly at home and this morning I have been lolling around and had another sauna and had some coffee and tried to walk the dog but he wasn't keen to go out or he doesn't understand because he only speaks Finnish. Later we will go out and see a bit of Helsinki and then go to another cousin's house for a meal and meet more family. How wonderful to realise that you have more people to love in this world.

Here I am again

Flight was full of turbulence and crying babies, getting here was a bit blurry, but right now I'm staying at a swishy hotel for a couple of days right downtown and had a great bath and a nap and dinner and a walk around town. now it's time for bed so I can get up super early to get to the office and get on with it. Woop!

Here I go again

Gonna miss him too....

 

Happy birthday VR

I'm gonna miss my people

 

and where have I been?

Things have been unseasonably hectic this past week, heck, this past few weeks. I'm preparing for another business trip and a vacation, work is crazy and for the first time in a while I am excited and feel creative, focused, and engaged about the things we are trying to accomplish. I will be meeting a part of my family that I thought would be lost forever and the anticipation of that is wonderful. Will they be amazing? Will they be strange? Will I like them? Will they like me? I will explain more later, the story is series of coincidences that managed to fit together as if planned.
My emotions on other matters have also been in turmoil and earlier this week, for some bizarre reason, all of that settled in my head and the anxiety disappeared. I have no idea why, but peace and a calm decisiveness seems to have arrived and everything seems very clear to me. The soft, warm breeze is back and I feel a love for me that has been missing for a while.
I am ready for some change and to accept some loss, I am ready for a change and accepting that I am not an island.
I'm ready, let's go.

Sick (Pollyanna style)

I don't get sick. Ok, I guess I should say I rarely get sick, almost never. Normally I start to feel a scratchy throat and a bit crappy, I take two Tylenol, go for a long run, wrap and scarf around my throat and go to bed and I wake up feeling better. Refusing to accept the sick goes a long way to staying healthy. This week, however, it got me. I tried to run it out, but the next day I just felt woozy and weak and achy, with that cotton head feeling and a cough. On Wednesday I gave in to it and spent a huge portion of the day letting the sick win. Whenever I do this, I feel like I'm six and I remember my mom taking care of me. I invariably go back to what made me feel good then.
So, without further ado, the things I like about being sick:
Oranges
My mom used to buy a bag of them when I got sick, or tangerines, or clementines, and she would peel one after the other for me to eat. That tangy sweetness made me feel sunnier, warmer, happier. I cannot be sick without them, although I do have to peel them myself now.
Sleeping on the sofa with the tv on
The other treat was camping out on the sofa all day. Lots of pillows and soft warm blankets, and the tv tuned to whatever channel had Sesame Street. I'd burrow under the covers and close my eyes listening to Big Bird and drift off, mixing dreams with the dialogue from the tv, feeling heavy and just barely conscious. In and out, waking up sweaty and cloudy and throwing off a layer of covers and falling back to sleep. Today, I will put in a Pride and Prejudice DVD, but the sleep is the same.
Hot showers
Ok, so this one isn't from when I was a kid, but the feeling of hot water pouring over my clogged head and breathing in the soothing steam is heaven.

Park

 
 

The ants come marching in

It's Spring, and that means flowers, sunshine, and the return of all things creepy and crawly. I spent a couple of years in Florida, so I know about all kinds of bugs, disgusting bugs, bugs that show up in such great numbers that you wonder why they do not control the earth. I have lived with them, squished them, drowned them, bombed them, and accidentally swallowed them. I like bugs, outside. I am much less pleased with them in my house, and in particular, in my kitchen. Imagine my thrill when I walked into my kitchen two weekends ago and saw a big old ant crawling across the floor. Then another. Then another. I live on the second floor, so I'm not exactly sure where they are coming from, and I didn't have any last year. My housekeeping skills are not stellar, and the little buggers seemed quite excited by the smarties Naomi dropped on the floor a while back. I got my shoe, took care of the ants, disposed of the smarties, vacuumed, washed the floor, killed a few more and tried to figure out exactly where they were coming from. I still haven't found out yet. I had a couple of ant traps, so I put those down. Every day I am still finding a couple, but they show up in random places and they always seem to be alone: the counter, one on the stove, in the dishwasher, by the cat food bowl, and this morning I found one trapped in the sugar bowl, which scared the heck out of both of us.
The next step is removing everything from the pantry and wiping it down and putting it all back making sure that it's all properly sealed in containers and ziploc baggies. That, and maybe dumping a big pile of sugar in the back garden. Until they are willing to pay rent, they are not welcome. This is war....

bowl roll

bowl roll
Originally uploaded by dina the m and o

Naomi has interesting technique.

A little shopping

My daughter's grocery list: Milk, salami, cherries.
It's for a pie.....

A glorious weekend

Montreal had a little taste of summer for the Easter weekend. We were all shocked and overjoyed when the lovely meteorologists informed us that we would have temps over 20C for three days! Global warming, schmobal warming, this rocks! I did some work Friday, and then went with a friend to Rapids Park in the late afternoon and spent time there watching the water and enjoying the heat and the sun with the other happy people who were also there enjoying it with us.


This is an amazing time of year because city folk get so caught up in the promise of the summer that we end up walking around with smiles and temporary good will to our fellow Montrealers. This lasts until the traffic, heat, and crowds of the numerous festivals harden our hearts again.
Saturday started with a nice long run and then I had plans for fish pedicures with Libby and Melissa, but Libby got sick and stayed in Toronto. Melissa and I went and had a great time having some lunch, catching up, getting our feet nibbled, then groomed and polished, and then we each found a great little summer dress on St Denis.



The temp got up to 26C and the clothing was scanty on the Plateau. We came out from our pedis and even in our modest summer outfits had a sexy strut up St Laurent. Melissa was telling me that in Vancouver (she lived there for several years before returning), men don't stare because they tend to get ridiculed by the ultra-feminists. I'm so glad that is not true here. In Montreal, men know how to look at women, and for the most part the Plateau guys are less leery "how you doin?" and more intense momentary appreciation. I think it's harmless and it always gives me a little extra wiggle in the caboose. Later in the evening, I headed over to Verdun and hung out with Maggie and the family visiting for Easter supper. The vodka and tonic was flowing as we sat out in the back garden and then the kitchen.



Sunday started with another run, then I picked up the kids, got Nomi into her Easter dress, and we headed for the townships to see my folks for Easter and to celebrate my dad's birthday. It was warm and sunny again, so we were able to have an egg hunt outside. The kids ran all over the place, we ate, I even managed a short nap. We got home late, but the kids are off tomorrow, so we'll have a low key day and collect ourselves for the rest of the week.
There were so many reasons to love this weekend - I hope yours was amazing too :-)

A little more music

On Saturday the kids and I went to an informal concert at the St Henri town hall. It was the Serenade Chamber Orchestra, a small group of young performers and part-time musicians formed in 1989. I missed a concert they gave at Notre-Dame de Bonsecours in March, so I was happy to find out that they were doing this one, and it was a perfect place to bring the kids. Other families showed up with young children, so it felt nicely informal. And there were doughnuts, so really it couldn't get any better.



On the menu: Vivaldi, Brahms, Bartok, and Beethoven. They were also supposed to play some Bruckner, but the conductor explained that they didn't have enough time to practise it, so we all voted to hear a bit of the Bartok again.



Naomi got a bit antsy and started wandering and dancing which was fine as long as I made sure she didn't spin into one of the cellists we were sitting behind. Ben listened and then occupied himself with a superhero figure of some sort (when he didn't have his finger in his nose, sigh).



It was just long enough and then we went home and had lunch and enjoyed some quiet time and then some play time. Hopefully we will find more activities like this over the summer, they are getting to the age where I can bring them to things like this and we can all enjoy it and talk about it.

A field trip

I went to a cabane a sucre with my daughter's daycare class yesterday. We got to ride a school bus, go on a tour of the sugar bush in a horse-pulled wagon, listen to a funny man do a very unpolitically correct version of why we have maple syrup, eat a greasy lunch, dance to some live music, then eat sugar on snow. It was a cool day, but sunny, so all in all I think we lucked out. There were many other school groups there, so there was a modest amount of waiting. After lunch we were lined up outside waiting for our tire d'erable and Naomi was getting restless. She pulled at my arm and whined at the unfairness of not getting her treat right away. We all get where she's coming from. I tried to explain that we all have to wait our turn sometimes, but that logic wasn't making a lot of sense to her at that moment. So I asked her, "Is this something worth waiting for?". She stopped pulling and looked at me, and I asked again, "Nomi, is the taffy something you really want? Is it something worth waiting for?". She looked at me and nodded, "So we wait" I said, and she was suddenly compliant. I think that it's a good exercise to stop and reexamine why we want something. There are a lot of things in the world that we desire, and I have discovered that a lot of that stuff for me is essentially useless. It's taken me a while to realise that the desire for the thing is stronger than my actual need for it in most cases, and when I stop and ask, "is it worth waiting for", most of the time it just isn't. But sometimes the answer is yes, and the wait leads to a sweet reward. I'm really glad that we waited too :-)

From a tornado to a soft warm breeze, well, sort of.....

It's spring here, that means that the lovely sunny weather we have had has turned cold and grey, and it's time for a weather and progress report. The winter was cold at times, stormy, but also beautiful and clean. Things lay dormant and I focused on what was happening inside for a while. My long-term goal is to continue to become a happier person. How am I doing? What have I learned?
First of all, I'm way too uptight about stuff. That does have its good points, but I am learning that I've got to be a little less up in people's faces and that goes for me as well. Forcing the world into my square peg/round hole view is exhausting and futile. I'm trying to be more forgiving, more open, more understanding. Some days this is also exhausting, but when I succeed I feel better about what I'm doing and less frustrated with others and myself.
I've talked about my problem with hurrying before. What is my rush? I'm slowing down, letting some responsibilities go, resetting priorities. What's more important? Getting to work on time or stopping to look at something in the park on the walk across to the school? I'm also driving a little less like a lunatic and actually getting a chuckle by frustrating hurried drivers behind me. Hey, gotta have fun somewhere!
I'm taking the time to enjoy myself as well. More concerts, more evenings with friends, more conversations with colleagues, and so much more planned this year!
I am not succeeding to do this every day. Most of the time I realise that I'm being a tornado mid-whirl and try to repair my damage. When I am able to still myself I feel so good that I know I want to continue this work I'm doing. It's just taking a lot longer than the tornado part of me wants to accept.

Much rejoicing

One of my neighbours found my cat! I had to crawl under his porch and drag her out because she was too scared to move, but she's now at home, filthy, hungry, but otherwise ok.
Sometimes you take the things you love for granted, and I have spent the past couple of days thinking that I would not get a chance to say a proper goodbye to one of my best and oldest friends. She has seen me through countless men, a marriage, jobs, school, tragedies, and moments of elation. She has seen me at my best and my absolute worst without judgment or a bad word. When I have needed her, she has always been there, sometimes with a purr and a cuddle, sometimes with a bite or a whack across the head. I'm sure I deserved it all. I know that she's just a cat, and that even though I love her, she's not a person, but you get used to somethings just always being in your life and the idea of them being gone is just wrong.
She's 17, I'm not kidding myself that she will be around forever and I am dreading the day we say goodbye, but that day is not today and I sincerely hope our goodbye will be a proper one deserving of our friendship.

and now my cat's run off and I've been rejected....

Fuck this. I need violins.....

ditty

I have a feeling, it's a feeling,
I'm concealing, I don't know why

Limitless

A few weeks ago I was talking about running a half marathon in April. I heard about it in February, and thought that it would be a good idea to challenge myself and to raise money for charity. I figured out a training schedule, and it involved training every day (running or cross training), but my hectic work schedule made sticking to it impossible. I kept trying to fit it in every day and some days it worked and others I just could not find the time, or I was making the time and then having to work late at night to make up time. I realised that I was spending my days feeling guilty for not training, or worn out from staying up too late instead of enjoying my runs. Then I got sent to Sweden and that threw everything off. I managed less than a handful of runs and felt incredibly bad. When I got back home, it was time to face some facts. I'm not ready, and I will not be ready by the time the race comes around for a half. I'm going to continue to train for the half, and work up to it later this year, but for now, I have to be content to do what my body can do and enjoy what I've managed to achieve. Pushing myself further than I can go and putting all this pressure on myself is not the way I want to live. I will get there, I have time, I'm not quitting, I'm remembering that sometimes there is no timetable on your goals.

It's been a bit crazy since I got back home.
Enjoying my kids, enjoying my bed, enjoying the warm sun, running outside, no snow, my bathtub, and watching the sun rise most mornings.
There is no time for me, but I hope to fix that soon. I need a housekeeper... and a good cup of coffee....

Sunday

Last day and I'm at the office this morning. Not all the work is finished, but enough that I don't feel bad about the release. The trip has been very productive and the week has flown. I will now try to get out of here and go for a walk around the city and enjoy the people and the sunshine before I head back to the hotel and pack up for the journey home. I was considering a run, but perhaps the city will be better for me :-)

Just a little update

Things are progressing, I'm fighting off a cold, the weather is sunny and cold here and in Montreal it's warm. I hope there's some mild weather left when I get back. Haven't been running since Sunday - must try to get to the gym tomorrow for an hour.
More stuff happening, but I'm too tired.
It's all good though :-)

It's getting done, I'm barely sleeping, but it's getting done :-)

A walk, a run, a dinner

I slept in today and then got up and went to the gym, but it was closed until noon, so I wandered around my favorite parts of the city. It was a mild day, but overcast. Lots of people were out wandering around, I even saw this huge running club all training for a marathon out running the slushy, icy sidewalks.
My fav spot is that outlook on Riddarholmen that looks out on to the city hall across the water. I find it so peaceful there. I went back to the gym for a run and then I jumped on the pendeltag (commuter train) and went to see my friends Will and Annika for dinner. We sat around and laughed and talked and listened to music and drank.

I thought I'd pass out when I got back to my room, but I couldn't settle and ended up sleeping fitfully. It was hard getting up and I had so much to do today that I felt a bit nauseous. I have more work to get done tonight, so I got some supper downstairs and will stay up here despite the fact that I want a fizzy drink and some chocolate. I will drink mint tea and have some biscuits instead.
Today was rough, but it was nice catching up with people I haven't seen in a while.

Day 2 - a visit with a baby

So I got my run in and it was great! I made friends with the girl at the gym and she'd willingly sneak me in, but she doesn't work there during the week, so I will have to find another way or pay - blah.
Got back to my room, showered, dressed, and went downstairs where Geert and Jess picked me up and we went to visit Lisa and her three-month old daughter, Sandra. She's an awesome baby - cute and so happy. She laughed a lot while we were there, finding us all very funny looking. It was great catching up with Lisa and discussing all manner of things over lunch and coffee. I got back and I skyped the kids - I miss them, but it's so nice to be able to see them and always feel better after a call. Technology certainly helps with mommy-guilt.

It's like I never left

Well, I made it over but the trip was exhausting and half the contents of my suitcase got soaking wet for some unknown reason and so I have things drying every where and my room looks like a refugee camp.
I got to the airport and was told the flight was overbooked and I was put on standby - great considering I knew how completely booked the flights are for the next few days. While waiting, a huge group of high school kids came in - they were participating in some band-related thing and were very excited, oh yay. I overheard this old man talking on the phone to his wife, mostly because he was shouting. He's quite old, with one of those HUGE lower lips, talked to her about refusing the wheel chair the airline offered, his pills, what he ate at the airport, and that they hadn't called for boarding yet (they actually had called for boarding of passengers with kids and who needed help, but he didn't hear them). Guess who I got sat next to? I barely slept the transatlantic because he was wheezing and getting up and rummaging around to take pills and complaining (it's too dark, the entertainment system is hard to use, he's thirsty, the attendants aren't around....). He's going to Australia and he can barely walk. I wish him luck with the dingos......
I ended up watching An Education, which was sweet but predictable which I didn't expect from a Nick Hornby screenplay. And of course I had a window seat, so time spent staring out into space. There's that lovely time during the flight where you watch the horizon and the sun rise.That dark blue changing to yellows and oranges, the sky lightening, it's so beautiful. I think I could watch it a million times and it would never get old.
Frankfurt was great - no snow and 12C! We arrived late because of delays and deicing so I had to get downtown right away. I found the train, but there's no one to help you, and I wasn't sure exactly where I was going. I broke out my German and figured out how to get where I was going. I watched people's faces as they tried to figure out what I was saying, then they'd reply and I'd be getting one word in six. I swear that I am language disabled...
The Swedes were happy to see me though! Bless their hearts! I took the train downtown, and when I was buying my bus pass the guy behind the counter kept giving me promotional granola bars - I must have ten in my bag.
Got to my room, showered, hung up all my wet clothes, and did my groceries at the ICA downstairs. It's a bit like coming home. I know the transit system and even the layout of the supermarket. God I love the yogurt here! And granola! Granted, not as good as mine, but miles better than Montreal. The weather here is like I never left Montreal, snow, slush, cold, sigh...
My friend called last night to tell me he arranged a pass at the gym near here for me and I emailed a few people and then passed out finally.
I woke up at 8, I feel better and I'm thinking it's time for a run.

Better today. Just trying to get everything and everyone organized.
And clean my house! What a mess!

umarme mich, bitte, ich bin verloren......ich brauche...etwas... so müde....

Lista

My life is full of lists right now: lists for work, lists of documents, lists of tasks, lists of chores, lists of things I need to do before I leave, lists of things to bring, things to drop off, and a special list that got started in my brain one night and is now nearly complete. I'm not sure what to do with this last one, although every rational thought in my body is telling me to write it out and then shred and burn it.
So we'll stick to the other lists for now shall we?

How you phrase it

I was having a conversation with a friend recently and we were discussing languages (and my apparent disability when it comes to learning them). I mentioned that among the other truly not useful things stored in my brain is the phrase "I don't know how to speak Russian", which actually did come in handy one day at a pharmacy, much to the confusion of the Russian lady I replied to. He thought that was a very useful phrase, and added these to the list of ones you should know when first learning a language: "Where is the bathroom?", "What's for dinner?", "Will you marry me?", "Are we married?", and "Take me to your leader". I was reading Molly Watson's excellent cooking blog, when I came across this post. In it she talks about a very strange phrase book she and a companion picked up which included phrases such as, "your hair is like gold, but more precious", and "you dance like a fairy". I have decided that learning how to tell someone that they dance like a fairy is too good to pass up. My daughter would appreciate hearing it, and perhaps because I am a girl I will avoid being seriously injured by a man in a discotheque. So, we'll start with Swedish I think:
Du dansar som en älva.

Girls who wear glasses

It is the end of an era. A few weeks ago, I went for my eye checkup, which I do religiously every ten years. Normally I go and the doctor tells me to come back in another ten years. This time, however, was different.
My eyesight is still great, I can still read the tiniest print on the farthest card with relative ease, but my eyes are getting old. As the doctor explained it, "you know how at the end of the day after you've been on the computer working and you've been doing a lot of reading and your eyes are really tired and sometimes you have a headache? Well, that's not supposed to happen." Oh. So she fiddled with all the settings on that machiney they make you look through and came up with the world's tiniest prescription for glasses to be worn when I work at the computer and for reading when my eyes feel tired. I went with my girlfriends and picked out some frames and the glasses came in. I wore them for the first time today, and I have to ask, HOW DO PEOPLE WEAR THESE THINGS ALL THE TIME? I can barely manage 20 minutes without making myself bonkers. Looking through a layer of glass at stuff isn't normal. Seeing the edges of glasses in your vision is distracting. I got a smudge on them and my eyes started to water. I'm not even sure that they make me look smarter. And I can't look through them for anything past my computer screen, so I have to look over them, or take them off to look at anything else. On the plus side, this does make it much harder for me to poke myself in the eye.
When I was a kid I always wanted glasses, I was jealous of all the kids who had them. Now I realise why so many people get laser surgery. My friends have told me that I'll get used to it, and I know they are right. I guess I don't have much of a choice anyway. Is senility and hearing loss that far behind?

A little lecture

Lots of things going on at the CCA lately. Last week I went with some friends to attend Pecha Kucha (or as I call it, Petcher Koochie). The theme was cleaning up the city, and I enjoyed the presentations even though it was hot and we ended up sitting on the floor. The beautiful people were out again, tall, young, hip, smart....I stuck out like a jar of peanut butter at a sushi restaurant. The coffee after with the gals made me feel less stupid and old though.
Tonight was one of a series of lectures for something called Ephemeral City. They were discussing public space. There were three speakers: Hal Ingberg, who is responsible for the coloured glass on the Palais de Congres, a Concordia grad student who had a good topic but read something she'd written so it was interesting but flat, and an architect who was probably fascinating but who I missed because I decided to meet a girlfriend for coffee. There was another event there tonight dealing with NASA and the challenges of filming in space - I should have gone to that I think.
As I left it was snowing. I cannot describe how nice the CCA space is. It's oddly quiet. You can see the stars most nights, and as you walk along the length of the building outside, you can look straight down Baille and see the search light on top of PVM. I love that light, it always makes me happy, always makes me think, home.
I have to pass out now so that I can get up super early and start answering emails.

Frenzy begins

Travel plans have begun again! They wanted me at the head office next Monday, but I think that I can manage being there the week after. The next time I went I wanted to tack on a couple of weeks for personal vacation time, but my work schedule may make this impossible. I'm looking forward to seeing my friends, visiting some of my favorite places. I'm also trying to book meetings with people I should really talk to while I'm there. And of course juggling my work schedule at home. Am currently researching all the changes to the project and contacting the teams to coordinate. I'm exhausted thinking about it all, but happy - can't wait to get there and see my buds!
Ran another 10km today - couldn't feel my legs at the end, but I did it!

A little music

After work I headed down to PdA and grabbed a last minute seat for the MSO. I was expecting a balcony ticket, but got one on the corbeille for $25 tax in. The lady on my left smelled vaguely of pancakes, the overly-tall fellow on my right (with binoculars) smelled a bit like Richard....still miss the way he smells... yes, pathetic, moving on.
Kent Nagano was in da house (ok, I'll stop that), which was entertaining for the flying hair alone. The program started with the premiere of a new piece by Gilles Tremblay. Tremblay was in da house (ok, I'll really stop this time, I promise!), and Nagano addressed him and told him what a personal influence he'd been growing up. It was touching, and I understood every word thanks to Nagano's anglo accent speaking French. The piece was commissioned by Radio France, L'Origine, for mezzo-soprano and orchestra.
Well, I didn't get it, or maybe I should say it wasn't my style. It had energy, but it was cacophonous, meant to be a commentary on society I suppose. According to the words the soprano was singing (she was lovely by the way, but hard to hear), the message was supposed to be positive, but I, and I have to say my seatmates, were not impressed. There was one woman in the front who loved it, but I'm pretty sure she would have given a standing ovation to paint on a wall. When you have all these instruments that can make such beautiful sounds, why waste your time producing something that sounds like a city street? You could go outside for that.

Now Beethoven, he knew what to do with an orchestra. Till Fellner was the guest pianist and impressed the pants off us with Piano Concerto no 1 in C major. It was a truly memorable main event. He'll be back playing the Orford festival according to the program.

The evening ended with some Brahms, lulling in the middle to the point of making me drowsy, but then a nice smashy, conductor crazy flying hair, all the string musicians pulling out the last ounce of energy from their arm muscles, ending.
And another highlight of my evening - I parked in a spot that wouldn't let me pay - the machine said that I couldn't park there, but it wasn't marked, and I didn't get a ticket, so free parking!

True love

Ok, so it's midnight on Valentine's Day and I'm just getting around to this. V-day started early this morning when the kids climbed in for a snuggle. Ben wished me a Happy Valentine's day before he even got into bed. There's something so indescribably wonderful about having a conversation with cuddly children in bed on a lazy weekend morning. That was my V-day gift, and it was the best present ever. We got up and I made waffles and cut little hearts in them which amused everyone. Their dad came and got them a while later, leaving me the rest of the day to myself. It was cold today, but not frigid, so I got dressed up and prepared for a run. It's getting harder to get out there lately, and I've been trying not to feel bad about that. I hate the treadmill - it's convenient and warm, but so dull that I can only do about 6km before I die of boredom no matter what music I have playing. To have a proper run, I really have to be outside.
So out I went, not wanting to brave the elements, but in need of the thing that makes so much of my life better. I count on running now, it's become more than a friend to me. It brought me through a really tough time and continues to offer me peace and calm when nothing else can. If you had told me a few short years ago that I would be running 10km on a Sunday morning, I would have looked at you like you were insane, but now I do it with relative ease. I am not a fast runner, I get passed by the people in the fancy black running clothes like I'm standing still, but it's not about speed or time for me, it's about quiet and release, listening to my body and letting my mind go.
I am contemplating a half marathon in April if my schedule permits (my travel schedule may conflict with the race or interfere with my training time too drastically) to raise money for the Children's. I've never run that far and I am not into racing, but I think it may be time to challenge myself, and if I do, I want to do it for charity.
Running has given me so much mentally and physically, it is a love that came late but that I hope to hold on to for as long as I can. Someone told me recently that as women get older running actually becomes easier, that we have more endurance, or maybe more of a desire to embrace that silence and serenity in ourselves. When I came in after my run I felt alive and happy and proud and like I was lit from within. That's what love does to you :-)

Good enough redux

Ok, hate to go on about this again, but....
There's been a lot more talk about that Gottlieb book/article, the latest I've seen is in The Globe and Mail (Leah McLaren:
My advice to married women out there: Suck it up).
"Suck it up. Be glad, if you're married, that you have a husband. Provided he's not a violent, gambling drunkard who just got off with your best friend, I'll bet that he's just fine. In any case, you made your bed, so lie in it. Better yet, roll over and make love to it. You may not think you're in the mood, but, trust me, you'll be happier if you do."
Holy crap.
Yes, I suppose there is something to be said for treating your marriage like "running a small, tedious, non-profit business", yes, marriage is not exciting every day, but if it's just a business arrangement, why not treat it as business and then allow moonlighting on the side. Wait, what's that you say? You have to accept that it's a practical arrangement AND expect your spouse to be faithful and only want and desire you after entering into this arrangement? I think we are losing some perspective.
Love is not sucking it up, it's a feeling, and you can't make it or earn it or create it in others; it's there or it isn't. Sure, you cannot have that "bodice ripping" passion all the time, but there has to be something there after all the mundane and difficult bits of life come out that makes you light up when you see that person, that thing that makes you smile even after you've heard your lover fart in bed for the zillionth time.
Love is not an arrangement, love is not a business, love is not a consequence to bear.
Good enough may be a little less lonely, a little more convenient for a while, but how on earth is it good advice?

Valentine Anthem

Valentine Anthem
Originally uploaded by avidreader514

Yes, she is that cute.....

my newest word!

What to do when you have too many Ys:
Syzygy
"In broadest terms, syzygy (pronounced /ˈsɪzɨdʒi/) is a kind of unity, especially through coordination or alignment, most commonly used in the astronomical and/or astrological sense.[1] Syzygy is derived from the Late Latin syzygia, "conjunction," from the Greek σύζυγος (syzygos).

Syzygial, adjective of syzygy, describes the alignment of three or more celestial bodies in the same gravitational system along a line."

La La La - can't hear you!

An evening of making granola, a little wine, some reading, and a lot of tired.
I miss you.

Out the window

Went to an informal shiva yesterday in Ontario for a friend's sister who died after a long illness. My friend said that it was a long time coming, but that you are never ready. It's another reminder to me to be here while it's here. I brought the kids and they were very well behaved (they didn't break anything).
We were in the car on the way there and it was a gorgeous sunny day. Naomi started a game of finding animals in the clouds. We found many crocodiles, hippos, a kitten, and a whale. We've played these games in the past, the special part is that now she's initiating the play and finding ways to entertain herself that do not involve poking at her brother. When I was a kid I didn't have a sibling, so I always had to amuse myself. It really wasn't that hard, I'm fairly simple. I would look out the window and blur my eyes and watch the wires dancing from telephone pole to telephone pole, I'd count the numbers on the posts, I'd make up creatures hiding in the ditches, and stare up into the sky. We travelled a lot, so the backseat of the car was a comfort zone for me, a silent place to think. When I look at all the video screens in the back of cars these days it makes me wonder how many kids are losing the ability to invent pleasure and amusement by looking out a window. Sometimes it's the moments of absolute boredom that push our minds to truly creative places.

My heart is feeling very sad today...

Sing, sing, sing

Like a sky without stars, like a meadow without flowers, such is a soul without love.

I went to my first full opera Saturday - Simon Boccanegra at the Met. Ok, so I wasn't really at the Met, but something equally interesting.
The Met broadcasts live performances of some of its shows to movie theatres across North America in HD. For $26, you can reserve a seat and show up at your local cineplex and see someone like Placido Domingo singing his heart out. In addition, you also get backstage interviews with the performers, plot synopses, and you get to watch them changing the sets behind the curtains - how cool is that? I've listened to parts of a few shows like this on CBC Radio 2, but I'd never seen one. Liz, my opera expert friend, got the tickets and gave me lots of background guidance on the singers and Italian history which helped a lot. I read the plot on the Internet and felt reasonably certain I wouldn't get lost. I didn't know if I would get bored or annoyed with an entire opera, but I'm happy to say that I found it entirely entertaining. The music was lovely, I've heard some bits of Aida, but I'd never heard of this opera before Liz suggested it. The soprano was a bit much, but the baritone and the bass were so smooth and soothing and rich sounding. It's the kind of sound you want to keep in your pocket and bring out when your ears need a hug. Yeah, I know that sounds weird.
It's not the same as going to a live performance (I hope to rectify that soon), but it's a fantastic way to enjoy the music and performance in a way that I think has more mass appeal. It's an inventive idea, I'd love to know who came up with the idea to try it. The only danger might be a drop in ticket sales for local, live opera. My friend told me that next year she's buying tickets for the Met series instead of O de M season seats.
I've never been an opera fan, other than Bugs Bunny. When my son took an interest a couple of years ago I decided that I would make an effort to learn more and listen and find out what entranced him about the music. Since then I've come to appreciate it way more than I used to (although so many of the stories are so freakin' sad!) and when Ben hums something from Carmen in the backseat, I can hum along with him.
I can't wait until he's a bit older and can handle the length of a performance so I can take him. And we can have popcorn!

"One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time". - Andre Gide

Citing

I was at the CCA tonight for a gallery opening. The topic sounded interesting, the relationship of writing and architecture. The pieces themselves are, well, I don't get most of them. I know that for some people having a showcase of oddly folded men's shirts and an iron is meaningful, but to me it's just shirts - although some of them did have the most amazing pleats. The bit that made me stop and think was the first piece - Peter Eisenman's Notes on Conceptual Architecture, which is an essay with all the text removed except for the footnotes. He is post-modern, a word that makes many people shudder. His last footnote says that a copy of the essay would be sent upon written request. I heard tonight that he didn't get many requests. He was taking the discussion of architecture to the next level - I can appreciate that on an original basis even though the theory of it is lost on me.
As for the event, I was adrift in a sea of pretentious, dark-rimmed eyeglass-wearing poseurs talking about their homosexuality and Derrida, most of them stylish and tragically thin. The eavesdropping at these things is fantastic. Later I was sitting and writing down some notes when a lady sat in the chair next to me. We talked and she was very nice. It was only later that I realised that she was the founder - duh Dina!
But back to the footnotes. As I sat and watched people I wondered what the footnotes of my life might be. If I stripped away the text, what would they contain? My secret desires, the observations and opinions of friends, things that I don't know that might be useful even though they have no practical place in my life? Maybe they would just be things that strangers see when I pass them on the sidewalk, dropped mittens, a frown because I am lost in thought, the sound of my voice as I talk to myself in the supermarket. What would you be able to glean if you looked at just the neatly numbered, properly documented footnotes of me? Who would the reader think I am? How different would they be from my own perceptions of me?

JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure | Video on TED.com

JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure | Video on TED.com

Something pretty because I can't end the day like this

Ich bin bei dir, du seist auch noch so ferne, du bist mir nah!
Die Sonne sinkt, bald leuchten mir die Sterne.

and because I need a laugh:

I love you, I love you
I love rhythm and rhyme.
But I have problems with meter
So let me start over and try this again one more time.
-Matthew P. Barnson

I love you, I love you,
So what if you worked yourself into a tizzy?
To have your manager give you the shaft,
I'm sorry, I didn't hear, were you busy?

I lack the words to describe how horrible today has been. If I could dissolve into nothingness right now I think I would.
Need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug, need a hug

Heart, mind, deed, life

Help, I have a cantata stuck in my head.....

Mr. Good Enough?

I was reading an article about Mr Good Enough recently. I heard the topic rehashed a couple of weeks ago on the radio. Lori Gottlieb claims that women should throw this idea of soul mates and ideal love out the window and settle for something more realistic in order to avoid ending up alone. She advises women not to be "picky".(http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/single-marry)

I've gone through two phases in the past twenty-plus years: the romantic and the pragmatic. When I was very young, I was romantic of course - school girl crushes, naive, inexperienced, shy, and awkward. Men were something I didn't understand, love was idealised, and I was intimidated and taken advantage of by men I thought were experienced and worldly - they were jerks. At some point I hit a pragmatic stage. My line used to be that you don't marry the person you can't live without, you marry the one you can live with even when they're being an asshole.
I had fallen out of love with the romantic notion, the one that I didn't think existed in real life. The prince does not exist, little birds do not braid my hair, and that perfect, all-consuming love is a fantasy. I reached that age where I was mature enough to realise that love is more than romance, that there has to be a realistic compatibility and a true friendship in order to make something that lasts. I found what I thought was perfect, wonderful, and above all, rational. When I married my ex I thought that this was the best relationship on the planet. And it was. For a while. And yet, despite the fact that the friendship never died, and I still feel a kind of love, it wasn't enough. Ten years later and two kids and suddenly I realise that I've learned something else: I wasn't admitting what I truly believed because to admit that makes me sound like I'm delusional, mimicking my four-year-old daughter's idea of love, regressing to some la-la land make-believe Disney baloney schlocky love that was crazy to believe in.
I'm still not really admitting it out loud to be honest, because it really does seem very foolish, but if it doesn't exist, why does the idea of it exist in the first place?
We all tell others that the big LOVE is a crock, but I think that most of us really do want to believe in it, we're just not ready to admit it until we find it. Once we do find it, the fairy tale stories emerge.
And yes, I know that there has to be something else to it. I mean, living with another person, even when you love them, is a lot of work and once you realise that that person is as much of a pain as you are, bubbles burst. Still, there has to be something else, something between Disney and a life of compromise.
So now I'm reentering a romantic phase, but this time I am armed with experience, confidence, the ability to braid my own hair, and the sense to know that if it doesn't work out, I will at least be able to write about it (men be warned). I want that man who loves me in his gut and who makes me completely crazy, who does nutty things because he loves me and who makes me vibrate.
Even if I never find mine, wouldn't it be foolish to settle for anything less than what I want?

To the woman in the black Hyundai this morning

Do you really think that driving while putting on your makeup is ever a good idea? Not only did you terrorize your fellow drivers with the weaving and sudden braking, but I'm guessing from the wild arms movements that you showed up at work looking like a clown, which I'm also guessing is not your profession because I didn't see a red nose when you cut through two lanes of traffic and back again for no apparent reason.
You will now be known as The Menace with the Mascara Brush.

Goodnight Moon

Friday night was a wolf moon - a full moon when it is at its closest point in orbit to the earth. I was walking through the parking lot at work when I saw it and it was so beautiful that it made me stop in the freezing cold and just stare up at it, so beautiful that I could have cried. It was huge and bright hovering over the buildings in the clear dark winter sky. I felt a bit of wonder, my brain jumping up and down shouting, "Look! Look!". I instantly wanted to share it with someone, not just anyone, but someone I care about.
I really want someone I can share the moon with, who feels that aching beauty in their gut too, who would answer the phone and say, "yes, Dina, I see it, isn't it gorgeous?"

To the man with all his arms and legs who got on the elevator with me and pressed "2"

Take the feckin' stairs you lazy ass!!!!

On love

The evening did not start with promise. I picked up my son first, and when I walked into the after school daycare room, he was happy to see me until I told him to put the legos away and get his snow pants on so we could pick up his sister. He yelled that he wanted to play and then threw himself on the floor and screamed. Great. This escalated into harsher words until he finally yelled, "I hate you". Ugh. You know that moods change on a dime when you're six, hell, they're just as bad when you're 40 some days. I fought back the hurt and the anger and just stopped talking, taking the "if you can't say anything" tact and hoping to find my calm voice as he demanded gum over and over and over again. Keep in mind that my son is normally the sweetest boy in the world, I felt like someone had replaced him with an alien pod-boy. Eventually he started to beg me to speak, which is when I almost managed to remain calm and explain why he wouldn't be getting gum, that his behaviour was not acceptable at all, and that he better change his attitude.
Then the wailing started. I was mean, I was unfair, he didn't like me, he wanted daddy. I turned up the radio and managed to get to my daughter's daycare without breaking any traffic laws.
Picked up the girl with only a minor tantrum while getting dressed and a brief panicked frenzy when we left her stuffed giraffe on the bench upstairs. Eventually got everyone back in the car and at that moment, it started snowing. Big fat flakes started falling from the sky, so big and substantial that as they were hitting the road in front of the car, they were being dragged and stretched by gusts of wind across the pavement, like white wiggling ribbons, almost alive.
Everything was silent as we all stopped to watch the show and a calm descended. By the time we got home, the pod-boy was gone and my boy was standing on the sidewalk catching snowflakes on his tongue.
Being six is a complicated thing. Being a parent is a simpler thing when you are patient. It's something I'm working on.

Ideal imperfection

I've been reading Alain de Botton's book, Essays in Love, in which he shares this little gem:
"Every fall into love involves the triumph of hope over self-knowledge. We fall in love hoping we won't find in another what we know is in ourselves, all the cowardice, weakness, laziness, dishonesty, compromise, and stupidity. We throw a cordon of love around the chosen one and decide that everything within it will somehow be free of our faults."
I read this five times over, and although I heartily disagree with it, I wondered how much truth there was in it. I mean, there is always that initial time when you meet someone and you think they are perfect- light radiates off them, they say the funniest things, the way they slurp their soup is utterly charming, you idealize them. But my favorite time in a relationship always comes a bit after, when you see the person's "faults" and you still think that he is the greatest person on the planet. It's like you can suddenly take a deep breath and say, "Phew, you're not perfect, that's a relief!".
My point is that I don't think that I want to find someone without my faults and I'm wondering why Alain would. Why is that an ideal for him? Self loathing? Is it because being near someone without his faults will make him a better person? Is it a difference between the way that men and women love? Do men search for perfection because they know they are flawed and want to be better and women search for imperfection because they know that they are flawed and don't want to be judged?
I'll get back to you on this.

Learning to put down the stick

We are our own worse critics. No one will ever be as judgmental about us as the person staring back in the mirror. Not to say that we are always mean-I can be my best cheerleader too-but it's hard to remember that what we think of ourselves, what we notice, is not seen by others. Friends do not see anything wrong with dishes in your sink, some cat hair on your clothes, a slightly burned cookie, a forgotten name, in other words, being human.
I was talking to a friend recently and we started discussing the stuff that we do that makes us judge ourselves. I'm not talking about knocking over liquor stores or kicking puppies, I'm talking about legal and non-violent actions that when viewed later and scrutinized seem like things that we should know better about. She wisely has decided to stop beating herself up about things like this, and I wish that I could do that more often. When I finally managed to forgive myself for the stuff I did during my marriage, a huge weight lifted. I also realised that I had managed to make myself feel bad about not being happy, which still makes me laugh out loud and shake my head. And again, who was the one who drove me to this? ME!
So how do I stop beating myself up for beating myself up?
It's obviously a slow process.

Ikea - check
Run - check (and it was awesome!)
Soup - no check
After my run I seem to have lost a couple of hours when my brain stopped functioning or something. This evening I went over to Maggie's and Andrew made pizza and we watched Bride and Prejudice which is a fun flick and always has me humming the tunes days afterwards.
I'm tired and I'm hoping to sleep. I keep waking up in the middle of the night and thinking about dumb stuff. Feel free to say hi if you're up too ;-)

Yeah, I know, big girl pants......
I had a sleep, and the world is feeling much better. I need a run today, I haven't been running as much in the last couple of weeks and I feel it. I actually had a nice day yesterday, went up to see the folks with the kids and went sledding and hung out. When I got home though, the tired hit me and I turned into a crabby pants. There was also some excellent cuddling time this morning complete with animal sounds and an imitation of a walrus. I must venture out to Ikea, fight the maze, and find another lamp. Then hopefully some soup making!

whinging

Beyond tired and cranky, feel utterly and desperately pathetic and only want to curl up into a ball and cry. Needing love badly, arms around me and the lightest of kisses on my forehead.

I know....

I miss you too, I really do, but work is nuts and I've had a string of crap days and there's all this random stuff I want to write about and reading to do and I'm too exhausted. I promise that I'll make it back.

singing and dancing in the snow

Woop! Movie tonight!

Feeling a bit hopelessly romantic today - I'm sure it'll pass.....but wouldn't it be great to have something wonderfully outrageous happen - like Gene Kelly grabbing me for a quick dance down the street, or some gorgeous crooner breaking into a song describing how lovely I am?
Why doesn't that stuff happen in real life? Who decided that a musical would appeal to people?
Why am I still here when there's a movie to watch? Bye!

Kids slept in, got everyone out the door, work, lunch, work, run, work, chat with a friend, home, read, bake cookies and fudge for bake sale, relax, sit. Dull, eh?

Ok, so a hug wouldn't hurt right now.......

The f word

So last Tuesday I'm sitting at work and all I can think about is..... fudge. I posted it on a status line in Facebook, then there were many other people who suddenly wanted fudge, I told a couple of people at work, and the infection spread. People were cursing me left, right, and centre. What's a girl to do? Go on the Internet of course and find a whole bunch of recipes for fudge, stop at the grocery store on the way home, and voila!

From Food - 2010

This version was named after someone's aunt and was made of milk and semisweet chocolate, evaporated milk, butter, marshmallow fluff, vanilla, and nuts. Getting marshmallow fluff out of the jar is a big pain in the butt. You really can't get it all out and it sticks to everything. It never really got creamy and I had to add more evaporated milk to it to thin it out.

From Food - 2010

I found it a bit gritty, but I took it to work and everyone seemed to like it. I've been nibbling at it too and it's growing on me, but I know I can do much better. Thus begins the great fudge-making endeavour of 2010!
Everyone get out your fat pants......there's gonna be some tasting.

Stollen

Ok, so the food thoughts are piling up. This year I finally wanted to make stollen again. For so many years I haven't gotten around to it at Christmas, but this year I vowed to make the time. The first one that I tried before Christmas was a disaster! The yeast was dead, and I steadfastly thought it would pull itself together if I just kept at it. I wasted ingredients, I wasted half a day, I ate some of it anyway because it was soooooo good, even flattened and unworthy of photography!
After Christmas was over and I had some free time, I went back into the kitchen and tried again, and this time, success!

From Food - 2010

Stollen that I see everywhere has that log of marzipan in the middle. I hate that, it reminds me of a hard-boiled egg and I find it hard to eat and ugly. Sometimes I don't use marzipan at all, but I found a version where you cut the marzipan up into small pieces and mix it into an almond paste you put together with butter, almond meal, and rum. The results are out of this world: a moist bread with a gooey sweet layer of almondy yum inside the sweet bread dough with citrus peel and cherries - your entire mouth hums when you take a bite.

From Food - 2010

I found myself wondering why I do not make this all the time. Ok, so I would weigh 500 pounds, but that'd be ok, wouldn't it?

Sometimes you just need to hear it/ Sometimes you've just gotta say it

I heard it today (compiled from a couple of sources), and so should you:

You are an awesome person! You are smart and funny and cute as hell, especially when you're thinking and you get that furrow thing happening. I could not wait another second to tell you this. If you were standing in front of me, I'd give you the biggest hug ever.

I love you.
d

An excellent end-of-year post.

First concert of 2010

Concert last night, hooray for a half-price special!
Haydn, Strauss, a Canadian composer name Staniland. Staniland kept the percussionists busy with little chimes and dings, not sure if it was supposed to be representative of ice, but bits were quite pretty. The Haydn was so nice I almost drifted off to sleep. The concert featured the OSM Standard Life grand prize winner, Jan Lisiecki on piano performing Chopin. He was remarkable, and he's 14! He walked out on to the stage, gangly and smiling, and blew the audience away. He's already won several competitions and it was incredible to watch his fingers flying over the keys and imagining what his life has in store for him. We are all full of potential, but it always amazes me when I see people who have accomplished so much at so young an age. It makes me wonder that if we were able to find the thing that makes our hearts sing at age 5, would we all be these incredible creatures?
There were two old ladies sitting next to me last night and their commentary and conversation between the music was annoying and amusing. They seem to go to just about every "cultural" event in town, and were both trying to sound so bored about it. They were debating quietly about whether the Strauss was any good, but the orchestra was playing Haydn and hadn't gotten to the Strauss yet. Why would you even go to a concert if you feel like that? You could just stay home and watch American Idol.
I don't know a lot about classical music, but I love watching the orchestra. I love seeing how they sit while they play their instruments, how they carefully put them down and pick them up, how some of them are so animated and others barely move, watching the horns clear their spit valves, and the percussionists! They stand quietly at the back and then explode, and then wait and wait, I don't know how they have the patience. How can you stand there with a cymbal in each hand and not bang them together compulsively like one of those wind-up monkeys?
I think there may be a reason why I was never in band......

something amazing

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Can't sleep....

Positive thinking, it's not just for breakfast anymore

So I was reading this excellent book review a couple of days ago and it got me to thinking. The review was of a book by Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. I haven't read it, but the title tells you the subject and stance. The author addresses the mass-mania positive thinking has in our society.
As witnessed, there has been a lot of positive thinking going on on this blog as of late. Most of it stems from the fact that I am generally a pretty happy person, but I also believe that positive things happen to positive people and that sometimes you just have to slap that smile back on your face and keep moving in order to get out of places of pain, ("smile, though your heart is aching, smile, even though it's breaking"). This all comes from the belief that everything happens for a reason and no pain lasts forever - at some point some new pain will come to take its place ;-)
With all that said, I know that sometimes it's just all blah blah blah. The idea that we should be happy all the time is an impossibility. We are all going to have bad stuff happen: heartbreak, loss, failure, disappointment, it's what we do with the bad stuff that matters. When you can take a soul-sucking failure and turn it into a life lesson and move on, that's a good thing - when you refuse to acknowledge your failure and quote something you heard on Oprah, well, that's stupid.

Ehrenreich talks about being shunned when she was being treated for cancer. Apparently failure is not an option, and she was criticized for expressing her feelings because she should have been spending all her time fighting off the cancer with positive energy. In our world of teddy bears and pink ribbons what is a woman to do when she feels mad and sad about her cancer? Is there no room for individual thought? There's a lot to be said on this subject. Let's face it, the ribbons have gotten out of control - they are on lapels, pickup trucks, hanging from houses, and even show up in emails made out of \ and |. They have come to symbolize the insipidness of people to follow blindly in large groups, it's like Mary Kay, only terrible because breast cancer awareness and all the fund raising should be a subject we respect. All too often now, the pink ribbons represent a roll-your-eyes symbol of fat ladies walking in large groups with inspirational music playing in the background. Not to say that this doesn't have its place, but being able to have one's own thoughts about one's illness is important.

So how do we find sincere positive thinking? Well, for starters, it has to be actual thinking, something that comes from the individual. Jumping on the bandwagon to raise money is all fine and good, but to gain anything on a personal level you have to think for yourself. Most of all, you have to be honest with yourself and not dismiss your less-than-positive feelings, they are an important part of the process as long as you learn to let them go.

And when all else fails, ice cream and your girlfriends solve nearly everything....

You say you want a resolution?

I've been working on this post in my head for a while and thinking, and rethinking. My end of year post gave the general outline of what I want to do this year: continue to follow my heart and my interests, appreciate and love my life and the people in it and let the positive stuff in.
I have a few specific goals that are on their way. I have a notebook with a list of things that I am currently writing, researching, or are just floating around in my head. I will focus enough this year to finish a few of them. My biggest stumbling block has never been writing, I write constantly, compulsively, my block has always been in believing that my writing is good enough for other people to read. I'm not talking about the writing I do for work every day, I'm talking about personal writing, the kind that is so hard to hear criticized. It's far from perfect, but a few people have encouraged me this year and I think that I have the confidence to put more of my words out into the world. Some of my hopes and dreams are a bit more lofty and I will keep them under my hat for the moment. I can visualize them, but advertising them seems a bit much even for me.
It always seems to boil down to confidence, and how easily that confidence can ebb and flow. If I have to choose one thing to accomplish within me, I think it will be to believe in myself, to believe in what I think and feel and do and try not to falter.
If possible, I would also like to learn to conduct a rudimentary conversation in Swedish, to swim laps gracefully, and to finally get my brain and body coordinated enough to juggle, but I won't be greedy.
Ok, time to get the party started.

Funny zombie movies and Indian food are the best cure for a down-in-the-dumps week. Ok, not the best, but a close second....

I need a change of scene.....

What?

Part happy, part amused, part impatient, part crazy, fully and completely engaged.
I know what I want right now, at this moment. I am standing still and my mind is whirling around refusing to wait, moving thoughts, creating scenes, imagining wonderful things, and it's all for me.

Is the trick to stay on vacation or just keep your brain from getting dusty?

I'm suffering from classic back-to-work syndrome. I am resentful of the alarm, highly disorganized during the morning despite prepping everything the night before, my eyes feel permanently weepy, and my brain is full of cotton. I'm going through my work and my head is bombarding me with a constant string of whining: "Let's go read a novel, I wanna write something fun, what's a RADIUS server again? Why are there so many acronyms? I need a nap!"
I'm about ready to strangle my inner voice. Problem is, it echoes that of my children who I have also had to get up and out in the mornings. We have been very late to school and work so far. I figure we'll have the routine back to normal just in time for my ex to take them at the end of the week. My son had a particularly hard day yesterday, his teacher called me last night. Some transitions are very hard for him, and I think that there was just too much of a difference between his vacation time full of play and the sit and learn of school. I feel for him considering that nobody wanted to work yesterday and I spent most of the day listening to holiday recaps.
I got my car back yesterday, it is shiny and the front of the car is gloriously unscratched, which always makes the first one tragic, but for now it's so pretty.
And upon weighing the pros and cons, I have decided to wait until Thursday to take the tree down so that my kids don't make a big fuss (they'll be gone). I'll face the music when they return.

I am exhausted. More reading, then bed.

Life as usual starts again tomorrow. I may be a little crazy by the time I get to work. Anyone want to shovel out my car?

It's not a new year without some fireworks